By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caBURNABY MOUNTAIN — No word yet if Toni Maric ever let the Buchanan Cup out of his hands on Saturday night after he and his UBC Thunderbirds topped the host Simon Fraser Red Leafs 66-54 in the 38th edition of the crosstown basketball brouhaha.Who knows? Maybe the ‘Birds 6-foot-8 fifth-year forward took it […]
Tag: Simon Fraser Red Leafs
Q-&-A with Tayla Jackson: As she finishes her first round of chemotherapy, former Brookswood, SFU hoops star, 28, speaks to her battle, and to the truth of hardcourt lessons worth leaning on!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caLANGLEY — If you’re a member of B.C.’s tight-knit basketball community, you may well already have heard the gist of her story.Two weeks ago, former Brookswood Secondary and Simon Fraser hoops standout Tayla Jackson wasn’t feeling herself.At the time, with the start of hoops season just around the corner, she was in the […]
SFU Women’s Hoops: As its new team identity takes root and Red Leafs prep for California weekend, junior guard Rachel Loukes confident ‘blue collar’ mindset is something team can lean on!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caLANGLEY — On the eve of her team’s participation in the season-opening Canadian Tip-Off Classic earlier this month, Rachel Loukes thought long and hard about how her Simon Fraser Red Leafs were being labelled as a working-class basketball team.And when the three-day event concluded on Nov. 2 at the Langley Events Centre following […]
Buchanan Cup 2025: As the timeless SFU vs. UBC men’s basketball rivalry gets Nov. 15 re-start atop Burnaby Mountain, it’s time to examine the weird, wonderful origin story 1968’s debut crosstown clash!
By Howard Tsumura(VarsityLetters.ca and Special for Simon Fraser Athletics)BURNABY — If the Buchanan Cup could speak, the first thing you’d hear would be a chuckle most identifiable as a last laugh.Too many times a pawn in the machinations of the Lower Mainland’s two most enduring university athletic programs, it has nonetheless aged with dignity to […]
AS SFU women’s hoops tips off Friday at LEC heavy grad tolls create early questions on offence! Newly-focussed Red Leafs look to build cornerstone identity with hustle stats by the bushel!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caBURNABY — The last time the women’s basketball team at the top of Burnaby Mountain went through this kind of change, they were first celebrating a national championship, then preparing to make the move from what is now known as U SPORTS to the ranks of the NCAA.All of that took place in […]
Simon Fraser men’s hoops: As Canadian Tip-Off Classic nears at the LEC, new head coach Barnaby Craddock melds newcomers and holdovers in build-up to 2025-26 GNAC season!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caBURNABY — With a brand new coaching staff and half of its roster new to the fulltime climes of Burnaby Mountain, it’s no stretch to say that Simon Fraser Red Leafs men’s basketball is set to open a new chapter in its program’s history.And page one of that treatise will begin write itself […]
SFU men’s basketball: Red Leafs battle through fourth straight one-possession contest, go to OT to top Fairbanks 77-74!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caHeavy mettle.That’s the best way to describe the Simon Fraser Red Leafs men’s basketball team over its past six games.On Thursday night in Fairbanks, Alaska, a Red Leafs’ team which had opened the GNAC season with an 0-4 record won for the third time in their last six outings, this time going to […]
She’s the Red Leaf rising! Myrlaine Shelvey hits six triples and Simon Fraser flirts with GNAC’s free throw record in much-needed 83-68 win over Western Oregon’s Wolves!
BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Myrlaine Shelvey knows the one thing her basketball team needs most is secondary scoring.On Thursday, as Simon Fraser continued a three-game home stand against a visiting Western Oregon Wolves team tied with them at 3-6, both locked just outside of playoff contention in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference standings, the redshirt sophomore […]
SFU men’s basketball: Offence hard to guard, defence locks down MSU-B’s threes as Howard, Coquia and Red Leafs roll to big win against host Jackets in season’s first GNAC win!
(By HOWARD TSUMURA, varsityletters.ca)Luke Howard’s final basket of the night on Thursday did a lot to prove the notion that the Simon Fraser Red Leafs’ two-game home sweep last week at the hands of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference’s two Alaska schools didn’t come in vain.In fact when Howard set a high screen for teammate […]
A Red Leaf’s rising! For Abby’s Luke Howard, seven seasons on the U.S. hoops road leads to a breakthrough homecoming at Simon Fraser as GNAC home slate opens Thursday!
By Howard TsumuraBURNABY — Luke Howard’s climb to reach the summit of his college basketball career has been interminably long, at times undoubtedly lonely and beset with enough re-starts to wobble even the most unflappable of hardcourt warriors.Yet at 7 p.m. on Thursday — seven years, four schools, a global pandemic and a torn ACL […]